FANNY W.Y. FUNG
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 13 October, 2015, 10:38am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 13 October, 2015, 11:45am
The monastery has raised more than HK$5 million in donations from the public to repair its premises. Photo: SCMP Pictures
The chief Buddhist nun of a Hong Kong monastery has been involved in two sham marriages to mainland Chinese monks and transferred donations for maintenance of its building to a bank account which she has total control of, one of its directors alleges.
The allegations were made by Mary Jean Reimer, a solicitor and former actress who serves on the board of directors of Ting Wai Monastery in Tai Po. She started a fund-raising campaign for the monastery earlier this year after learning that the building was in poor condition and lacked money for maintenance.
On Monday, Chinese-language newspaper Sing Tao Daily and its sister title Headline Daily cited recorded conversations between Reimer and monastery chief Sik Chi Ting, in which the nun admitted she had married two mainland Chinese monks at different times in order to help them secure Hong Kong residency.
This was confirmed by Reimer on a Commercial Radio programme on Tuesday morning. According to the lawyer, she made the discovery during her assistance for Chi Ting in a land dispute. They approached a law firm to help the nun in the case. The firm then suggested she apply for legal aid.
“I filled out the application form for legal aid for her. On the blank of marital status, I naturally wrote ‘single’ for her because she was a nun and I had not ever doubted she was unmarried,” Reimer told the talk show.
“But then she told me I could not submit that application because it contained false information and that she was married. I asked if she would divorce and she said she had to wait for seven years so that her ‘husband’ could obtain a permanent Hong Kong identity card.”
The monastery has raised more than HK$5 million from the public to repair its premises. Reimer said it had two bank accounts: one to place money designated for donations raised for this purpose and another for general donations to support the institute’s other operations.
But she and a group of volunteers found that Chi Ting had appropriated some of the donations for the maintenance project to the general account, which only the nun could access.
Reimer will give a press conference at 3pm to reveal details of the case. The South China Morning Post is contacting Chi Ting and other parties for reaction.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1866836/chief-buddhist-nun-hong-kong-monastery-married-two-mainland
